


we are warm motes of energy

by mahwaha



Category: Haikyuu!!
Genre: Aged-Up Character(s), Alternate Universe - Science Fiction, IN SPACE!, Implied Relationships, M/M, Slice of Life
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-07-31
Updated: 2016-07-31
Packaged: 2018-07-24 17:11:53
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,363
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7516393
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mahwaha/pseuds/mahwaha
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>They share a smile within the bubble of the cockpit, its surface streaked with passing lights. Another night of routine.</p><p>It’s warm.</p>
            </blockquote>





	we are warm motes of energy

**Author's Note:**

  * For [riots](https://archiveofourown.org/users/riots/gifts).



>   
> _“May the nights always be aglow_  
>  _with the bliss of the day_  
>  _with unharmed hands and feet_  
>  _and kissed cheeks.”_  
>   
>  -Sanober Khan

The warm fog of his own body chases Asahi on his way from work, humid and earthy from his time planetside with Nishinoya and the crops. It pulls his attention from the sprawl of stars opening up past his reflection in the transport ship’s window, past the glassy green glow of Daichi’s bubble of atmosphere, past the tickle in his chest that always accompanies his thoughts after work: _from one Daichi to another._ Both work him plenty hard and prod him with high expectations, but the one waiting for him in the shimmering rings of HB-R doesn’t make him suit up. For the whole ride back, his hands rest in his lap while Nishinoya chatters on beside him, still as animated and boisterous as he’d been at the start of their shift despite his sweat-flattened hair. The tang of skin and heat vents up from his shirt whenever he shifts, but Asahi still listens with a peaceable smile and tired, crinkled eyes.

After they cut through the first hyperspace ring, HB-R winks with the light of distant stars. Suspended on a black map, it looks small enough to fit on his finger with the brushed bands that he and Daichi had exchanged years ago, but past the second hyperspace ring it glitters and looms, a concentric web hidden past that outer ring. Every time Asahi saw it, he thought of stray asteroids punching out the center and giant jewelry. Every time Nishinoya saw it, he waved from the window as if he were twenty years younger and coming home from some faraway victory. Asahi lifts his hands out of the way while Nishinoya stretches over his lap to reach the window, fingers a blur through the laughter from their closer coworkers.

Not that Asahi minds it. Nishinoya bleeds satisfaction after shining his high-beam smile out, whumps back into his seat, and grins up at Asahi while he sags and settles.

“Ryuu said he’d drag Chikara to the telescope today,” he says, comfortable and doubtless while his knees bounce. Asahi knows about the telescope. Knows that Tanaka and Ennoshita live on the outer ring, too. Still doesn’t know how Nishinoya can tell which window is theirs, though, so he nods and scratches the nape of his neck before glancing outside. HB-R’s shadow blankets them all at once while the public transporter glides for the docking bay, and Nishinoya elbows Asahi’s side as he sits up straight all over again. “Hey, you n’ Daichi should come over for dinner later. We’re gonna do hot pot and movies.”

Asahi rubs his side but nods, the fatigue in his expression lifting in inches to make way for a lopsided smile. “I’ll ask. We’ll com you?”

Nishinoya hums his agreement, floats on more bolstered than ever all the way to the bay before they part at the circuit trams. This time, Asahi waves while Nishinoya boards the red line. He doesn’t need a telescope to catch Nishinoya’s hand blurring at a back window, definitely doesn’t need one to catch when the coms around his wrist pings - though, with a frown, Asahi realizes he might still need his glasses before indulging himself and enlarging the message waiting for him. The hologram of it above his wrist accommodates it.

 _From: Daichi :)_  
_i’m waiting for you in the pige_

Asahi fires off a quick “ok!” Since Daichi always parks close there’s no need for anything else, and once Asahi makes it streetside the tired gray of the Passenger Pigeon hovers right on his periphery. The ‘student pilot’ sign still glows across its back, and Asahi makes a vague, sheepish gesture above his head before Daichi cottons on and flips it off. He must’ve been working later than usual, but the pige doesn’t look any worse for wear - but Daichi does, when Asahi pops open the bubbled cockpit to climb inside. Daichi’s hand pauses where he’d been massaging his knee, perched above his prosthetic, and Asahi’s brows scrunch above his tight smile. 

“Don’t make that face,” Daichi sighs, not unkind. “I’m busy, not derelict. Buckle up.” He pats Asahi’s chest, palm broad and reassuring, and Asahi catches his hand to squeeze it in passing. They share a smile over the snick of the belt buckling in while the engine hums to life. “How was work?”

“Hot.” Pausing, Asahi glances Daichi’s way - glances again - smiles, a steep curve scrawled with a tease - 

“If you tell me Daichi’s too hot one more time,” Daichi warns, but Asahi’s already looking away to watch the traffic arrowing above them. And to smile more. It’s comfortable when he peeks back and finds Daichi smiling to himself, worn but wry while his breath puffs with his amusement. It looks and sounds better than the Daichi who suffers sixteen-year-old raging and jerky nerves while quizzing kids on the laws for navigating asteroid belts and right of way. “Nishinoya’s a bad influence. You’re too impressionable.”

“He wants us to have dinner with them tonight,” Asahi answers instead, chuckling all the same. “They’re making hot pot.”

Daichi shakes his head, brows arched while he punches them up into the flow of ships and guides them high, the labyrinth of buildings below them topped slick with passing underbody LEDs and the mapped web of traffic lights. “Actual hot pot or ‘trying hard’ hot pot?”

“I’ll ask who’s cooking.” Asahi’s coms winks on, quick as a thought, and he scratches his cheek through the spill of the message out. Ennoshita answers first. His timing doesn’t disturb the careful creep of Asahi’s hand towards Daichi’s thigh at all, though his shoulders jump from the chipper ping demanding that he read it. The holo-screen flickers when Asahi’s fingertips graze Daichi’s pants, and Daichi lays his palm over Asahi’s hand while steering with the other. “Actual hot pot. Tanaka’s in charge.”

Interlacing their fingers and taking a turn, Daichi hums in affirmative. “Tell them we’ll be there. Might be late.” This time, he glances Asahi’s way. The slope of his smile tugs through Asahi’s stomach with the promise it wields. Promise for ribbing, at least - and Daichi delivers. “You need a trim, or they’ll think I’ve brought a dog instead of my husband.”

Immediately, Asahi’s free hand flies to his jaw to check for stubble. Finds none. He frowns when his fingers card back over his hair, instead, chasing flyaways to the flips and waves crowding around his face where his work helmet hadn’t quite stamped out their rebellion. Daichi shakes their linked hands with a little snort. “You said you wanted me to, right? For work?” Even with his eyes ahead, Daichi never misses an opportunity.

“We can save it for later,” Asahi mumbles. “I don’t mind.”

“Mm, it’s okay.” When Daichi shakes his head, the hangar for their complex comes into view, one mouth of many amongst the dark jut of the residential districts. “We’ll have time.”

And they do. Daichi’s hands have always been steady and decisive, and dinner at the Enno-Tana-Noya household always runs late.

More often than not it also comes with surprises. Asahi has the gall to think that he might fill that quota when they reach Nishinoya’s floor, but when the door hisses open that thought’s dashed. His hand drops from the tamed trim of his hair and its slicked-back top, and even though he shouldn’t be surprising at all, Yamaguchi’s eyes still widen with his smile when they drink each other in.

“Ah!” Mirroring that smile after a belated beat, Asahi gestures to Yamaguchi’s whippy silhouette and the dark hair crowning it. “You grew your hair out!” It’s pulled into a low tail but still messy about his face, as innocuous and charming as Yamaguchi himself. Had he grown taller? Asahi’s smile melts friendly at the realization.

“And you cut yours?” This time, Yamaguchi mimics him, eyes soft in the corners. “It looks good like that.” Yamaguchi waves them in over Asahi’s thanks and slouches when Daichi rests a hand on his shoulder in passing. In passing, he can hear Daichi’s welcoming, “Yamaguchi,” but it dips below the noise in the apartment within seconds. Sound swallows them between the steady _thok-thok-thok_ from the kitchen and Nishinoya’s booming voice, blaring like an alarm as soon as his eyes alight on Asahi’s hair.

“You look like a wanted man! Still cool, Asahi. And Daichi!” Cannonballing toward he and Daichi, Nishinoya claps a hand to both of their shoulders before reeling them in for a hug - one Asahi has to hunch into while Daichi wobbles on his feet with a start. 

“Watch it.” Even with his grumping, Daichi’s brows aren’t knit so much as they’re arched; he clasps Nishinoya’s shoulder before reaching for the nape of Nishinoya’s neck to jostle him back. His smile betrays him, makes Asahi smile too. 

“Sorry, sorry. Knew you wouldn’t fall, though!” A force to be reckoned with, Nishinoya barks out a laugh and slaps love into their backs with stinging effort. Asahi winces. Daichi steadies out. Nishinoya grins like mad. “M’glad you came!”

“Still rowdy,” Daichi says, shaking the strain from his voice as he straightens. 

When Ennoshita steps out from the hall, it’s waves and smiles all over again - because by then Tanaka’s sticking his neck out from the kitchen, wielding a shark-toothed grin, and Asahi holds up his hands in defense when Tanaka’s knife joins him to say hello. Or, more accurately, to come sailing in with a long, “Yooo!” If the walls weren’t reinforced for sound and Ennoshita didn’t live here with them, Asahi’s sure the neighbors would complain. Tanaka, at least, doesn’t tackle anyone; when he tucks in to pat Asahi’s back, mindful of his knife but no less boisterous, he smells warm like broth and alcohol. “Good to see you, man!” He and Daichi bump knuckles like they’re still students before Tanaka ditches them all for the kitchen, and Ennoshita laughs a little before sweeping them all out of the way.

“We’re still waiting on someone,” Ennoshita says, not so young that he has to rein Nishinoya in by his collar; it only takes a look and a nod toward the kitchen before Nishinoya’s throwing a thumbs up, tossing “drinks!” over his shoulder when he excuses himself. Asahi watches him go - still compact, still loud, but smoothed around the edges like a tumbled stone. He’s mellowed out, hasn’t he? As Asahi looks back, Ennoshita gestures farther in toward the couch with a smile proffered to the three of them. “Tanaka’s not done yet, either. May as well sit and catch up.”

Asahi’s brows lift as he follows them all forward to take a seat between Yamaguchi and Daichi on the couch. While Daichi touches gazes with him in passing, Yamaguchi trades smiles like satellites with Ennoshita. It reminds Asahi of ESP, and he has half the mind to think _‘please don’t read anything embarrassing from my mind’_ before he reaches for the bait. “Who else is coming?”

Yamaguchi opens his mouth, but the doorbell trills and beats him to it. There’s a beat of quiet where they all look toward the door, but Ennoshita stays glued to the couch with a bracing breath.

Almost instantaneously, Tanaka explodes from the kitchen to answer it while Nishinoya laughs out after him, both of them greeting the flat expression awaiting them behind the door with a, “Meat boy!” Tsukishima’s nose wrinkles where he looks down on both of them, eyes bare and pinched under the surge of attention. Asahi covers his smile with his hand when Tsukishima holds the paper package above his head and starts to gripe but is all but dragged inside, locked between Tanaka and Nishinoya and herded toward the kitchen immediately. If he didn’t look so stern and resigned about it, it could’ve been like watching a scary movie; Tsukishima’s there one second and gone the next.

“Our savior!” 

“The meat savior!”

“Tsukishima, you amazing bastard!”

“Is that the fancy - it _is!_ ” Nishinoya crows. “Tsukishima, I’m gonna kiss you!”

“C’mere!” Tanaka’s goading chases Nishinoya’s tail, unseen but flooding the room all the same. “You sappy punk!”

“ _Don’t._ ” Tsukishima snips, voice tugged up with alarm and an edge of strain, and Asahi sucks his lips past his teeth to stifle a laugh. He and Yamaguchi are the only two who give Tsukishima’s dignity that courtesy, but when Tsukishima stumbles from the kitchen it’s clear he’s left it behind. A minute or two in the kitchen hurricane and he’s frowning, pink-faced and ruffled every which way.

“Hi, Tsukki,” Yamaguchi offers, placating but so close to a snicker. Tsukishima stares at him in answer before searching each of their faces, smoothing his shirt but scratching through his hair. Both gestures look like wasted effort.

“Daichi-san,” Tsukishima finally says, tone flat while he nods. “Asahi-san. Ennoshita.”

The dam in Yamaguchi bursts, and he laughs at the slight. Asahi doesn’t miss the budding smile housed at the corner of Tsukishima’s mouth when he walks over to sit with them.

Catching up flies through the time like a hypergate all its own, so absorbing that Asahi sits up with a start when Nishinoya shows up with drinks long-forgotten, toting bottles with the practiced ease of a waiter and a grin too earnest to match. Ganymede’s GanyMead. Nishinoya sticks around long enough to pop the cap off of Asahi’s bottle when he can’t quite manage, then reassures him that it was “a tough one” before leaving Asahi to the wolves: Daichi’s slug to his shoulder, Tsukishima’s tucked-away smile, and Yamaguchi’s good-natured snickering while Ennoshita shakes his head like nothing has changed. It hasn’t. Not really.

Time doesn’t have the luxury to escape them again before Tanaka’s sauntering out to wave a beer in their direction with a, “Food’s ready, guys.” Asahi helps Yamaguchi move the table for the hot pot while Ennoshita and Nishinoya grab dishes, and Daichi halves the burden of relocating the food with Tanaka. Tsukishima commandeers the wall-wide holoscreen in the meantime. Once they’re all together and settled, it’s to a special on PUDDING♥HEAD’s ongoing intergalactic tour with FLY. No one says it, but Asahi knows he’s not the only one hoping to steal a glance of Suga, Kageyama, or Hinata; it’d been ages since Asahi had seen any of them in person, even though Suga comms them when he can manage it.

“Asahi-san.” Tsukishima pulls his attention up and over where he offers the plate of vegetables, and Asahi straightens when he takes it, thanks spilling over without a second thought. Tanaka helps himself to the meat first - the meat that Tsukishima had set in the pot - and Nishinoya reaches to steal the next piece before Tsukishima takes the defensive and holds it aloft.

“Chef’s privilege,” Tanaka insists.

Nishinoya fights the gap between he and Tsukishima like he’s considering climbing something, either Tsukishima himself or the table. “I helped!”

“And I bought it,” Tsukishima says, tone flat while he plays keep-away. It warms to match his smirk soon enough. “Aren’t you a little old to be begging for table scraps?”

Asahi’s Daichi-sense starts tingling, and even with the edges of that killing aura sanded down it makes his skin prickle. “Aren’t you guys too old to flirt like that?” Flecks of broth spot the table as Daichi pins them all with a smile, and Ennoshita reaches for the back of Nishinoya’s shirt to yank him back down. Tsukishima drops his dripping meat back into the pot.

“Honestly.” Ennoshita sighs. It sounds too fond to fit a reprimand but Tanaka still stuffs his meat into his mouth like he’s burying the evidence and Tsukishima clears his throat, looking to the nearest plate. Nishinoya’s still grinning at the two of them like co-conspirators.

Privately, Asahi finds the whole thing cute; it makes him miss his friends a little more, even though so many of them are right there with him. He picks at his food until Daichi bumps shoulders with him, chin ducked and brows quirked with a question, and Asahi answers him with a little smile and a shake of his head. He misses the fond way Nishinoya watches them and jerks his chin until Tanaka looks, too. In fact, he must miss a lot, because when Asahi looks up everyone but Tsukishima is smiling like they’re sharing the same joke.

ESP. He has half the mind to think _‘please don’t read anything embarrassing from my mind’_ before he reaches for the mushrooms and chuckles at his own expense. Once the conversation picks back up, his shoulders relax and he eases back into his food.

It’s warm. His neck’s a little chilly from its trim, but he’s warm: catching Yamaguchi’s smile when Ennoshita bumps shoulders with him, or how Tanaka puffs up with pride the more they eat and the more he drinks. Asahi listens more than he speaks, but it’s warm: Daichi’s hand on his thigh beneath the table, Nishinoya’s feet bumping his legs, Tanaka’s arm over his shoulders and his glistening eyes as Hinata appears onscreen, howling over his audience. The beer bites sweet on his tongue, the greens spicy - greens he tended to on Daichi, and his thumb massaging lines into Daichi’s knee once he slows on filling his stomach. Every ounce of fatigue on Daichi’s face is matched with another of settled pleasure while he leans across the table to hear Ennoshita a little better.

It’s warm, even when they linger too long and eat too much. Even when Tsukishima quips over the invitation to spend the night - the same one he and Daichi have to turn down for work, because Daichi still has papers to grade for both his flight and math courses. Yamaguchi accepts in their stead, because despite his height he’s still a lightweight who had too much to drink for the trip back to HB-S. Maybe he stays for Ennoshita, too. To wring out every last goodbye, Asahi lingers at the doorway with smiles and tired-eyed waves, hugs Tanaka and promises to see Nishinoya at work.

When Daichi plies him from the door with his warm grip, Asahi folds. It’s an excuse to hold hands on the way back to the pige. The late traffic struggles along in microbursts with stars wrapped around their periphery, and it’s warm when Asahi eases into his seat and listens to Daichi yawn. Stray lights coast across those dark brown eyes. Effortlessly. Makes Asahi want to doze.

“How was it?” Daichi asks, parting the lull of the engine and the lull of Asahi’s eyes.

“Mm?”

Glancing his way, Daichi quirks a smile. “Dinner, goofball. You were quiet.”

“Mm.” Reaching up to rub at his eyes feels like wading through mud, so Asahi stretches as far as the pige affords him and sits a little straighter. His smile hammocks his mouth, lazy. “It was really nice to see everyone. I didn’t even know that Yamaguchi and Tsukishima were here.”

He doesn’t need to say that he wished the others were there, too; Daichi knows him well enough to read it. ESP. There are a lot of embarrassing things Daichi could skim off his mind, but none so petrifying that Asahi’s afraid to think of them while he scrubs his hands over his face. “How’s your leg?” He asks, and Daichi parrots back the hum that’d been fogging up Asahi’s brain.

“Mm. A little tight.” The console light washes Daichi blue and pale, and the green glare of Asahi’s wrist comms layers onto it as he pulls up a fresh message. To Suga. Daichi smiles to himself. “I’ll be fine once it’s off.”

 _‘We had Tanaka’s hot pot tonight,’_ Asahi types, pulling a breath deep enough to make his chest swell. On the exhale, he says, “I’ll rub it for you before bed,” but it comes out like a question. So does the eye-tag he plays with Daichi’s face, fingers hovering over the holokeys on pause.

Daichi surprises him with an easygoing, “Sure.” Surprises him less with the knuckling against his shoulder. “I’m too tired to deal with that kicked puppy look on your face for saying no.”

They share a smile within the bubble of the cockpit, its surface streaked with passing lights. Another night of routine.

It’s warm.

**Author's Note:**

> I hope you found a smile here, riots, and that you enjoyed reading it at least half as much as I did writing it!


End file.
